


Just a City Boy

by persnickett



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-15
Updated: 2011-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-15 16:49:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickett/pseuds/persnickett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you're working with a hacker, you learn to communicate in code.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just a City Boy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Severina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severina/gifts).



> A gift for Severina, in exchange for the gorgeous Justin Long mood theme on my lj.  
> Here's what she prompted me with:  
> 1\. He's always had an active imagination  
> 2\. spreadeagled  
> 3\. paperwork  
> 4\. bad habit  
> 5\. cigarettes and chocolate cake

John leaned on the horn. 

 

Goddamn Federal Plaza. Why the hell’d he take this gig?

 

“So you could pick me up every morning and complain about it for forty-five minutes?” Farrell yawned.

 

Apparently John had been talking out loud. And apparently that last horn blast had woken the kid from his customary nap next to him in the passenger seat. Matt always slept better in the car than in his bed at the hotel. John didn’t know whether it was the lull of the motion, or the drone of news radio, or just the fact that there were no distractions here like his laptop, or John’s dick, to keep him awake. And he wasn’t gonna ask. 

 

Regardless, being groggy in the morning never stopped the kid from having something mouthy to say.

 

“Seriously. How can it take this long to drive four miles?” Matt rolled his head back on his headrest and gave a whimper of impatience. “This city, McClane, I’m telling you. These living conditions, they’re inhumane. No wonder everyone here is such an –”

 

‘ASSHOLE!’ John yelled out the window at the brake lights of the yellow cab in front of them.

 

Matt made a smartassed gesture of confirmation like he couldn’t have said it better.

 

“So New Yorkers are all assholes now?” Matthew had been getting pretty comfortable recently, hanging around the Village and demanding things like bagels from Murray’s, and Irving Place coffee, to be taking that attitude.

 

“Did I say that?” Matt asked, with a tone of exaggerated innocence. “That assessment – which was charming by the way – was all yours, Agent McClane. I was just trying to get some sleep after…”

 

Matt trailed off. They never spoke about what happened at night when the sun was up. Diversionary tactics were required here.

 

“Gonna have to ask you not to call me ‘Agent’, Cyber Crime. It’s Detective. I’m still NYPD. Dammit. JERKOFF!” 

 

This last to the bike courier cutting through traffic, dangerously close to their front grille.  

 

“Technicality,” Matt grumped, like they didn’t just narrowly miss causing fatal injury to a cyclist. He hated when John called him by his division now. Little too on-the-nose for him, John figured. 

It had been nearly eight months now, since Bowman had called Clemino with a lot of convincing statistics, and an even more convincing salary, wanting to talk to John about the Joint Terrorism Task Force. And then called again. And refused to stop calling.

 

“Guess our new handles both suck. It was way cooler when you used to call me ‘Intelligence’.”

 

“Well then I guess you need to stop being such a good little whiz kid and quit getting promoted.”

 

John knew from Lucy that Matthew had taken the same call a couple months earlier, but it had had little or nothing to do with John's decision. His latest promotion back at the Department had moved him up to ‘Sergeant Detective Supervisor’ – and right out of the field. Seemed like the damn fire sale was _still_ changing everything. Throwing Farrell into his path and putting a desk in his future, whether John wanted them there or not. 

 

“Maybe I will.”

 

Kid was about as subtle as a trip-hammer sometimes. John hadn’t forgotten Farrell was fully capable of stopping ‘being good’ and getting downright dangerous any time. Nor that there was pretty much nowhere left for him to go from where he was now at the Bureau here. He’d done real well.  John was both surprised and impressed. If what he wanted was for John to say so…well then he’d have to shut up a second first.

 

“Although it is an improvement over when you got to call me ‘Counter-Intelligence’ for three months,” Matt was saying. 

 

John smirked at the memory and forgot to yell “watch yourself Wall Street, I’m a cop!” at the guy with the Armani and the cell phone, who thumped his fist on the hood as he hurried illegally across the street not 30 feet away from a cross walk.  

 

God damn paperwork. Fuckin’ FBI. John missed his cruiser. 

 

  
~ ☼ ~

 

 

The ceiling was stained yellow with years’ worth of nicotine. John stared up at the sinuous curl of smoke as it serpentined its way upward, and wondered how many of the cigarettes to come before this one and leave those traces had been smoked alone, and how many of them had been lit by the person lying next to their owners. He wondered what they talked about, stretched out and fucked out, sharing that post-coital buzz in a bed that was not their own. He was pretty sure none of them had been doing what John was doing now.  

 

Which was playing glorified coffee table to a techno-genius from Jersey with a sugar addiction. It didn’t seem to matter how many times John reminded the kid he didn’t eat chocolate, it always started the same way. 

 

Every night after they were done, Matt would squirm away from John. He’d struggle out of his grip, pull on his discarded shorts, and trudge across the room to call down for room service. He’d ask John if he wanted anything. Weird shit, like warm milk. John always felt like it was some kind of test. 

 

If he said the wrong thing, Matt would climb onto the opposite bed with his little picnic when it arrived. It had taken him seven months to be able to sit cross-legged, so he did it all the time now. With a plate between his knees and flicking through all the crappy basic cable channels on the room’s tiny television, until John got up and grabbed his smokes off the table by the door. 

 

He would sit in the chair next to the bed and watch Matt’s mindless parade of George Foreman infomercials and phone sex hotlines. When he was done with his smoke he’d finish getting dressed and tell the kid he’d see him in the morning. And Matt would nod emphatically, happy as you please, and say ‘see ya, McClane’ around a mouthful of something insanely sugary to be eating at midnight, like waffles or apple pie. No wonder the kid couldn’t sleep.      

 

If he got it right, Matt would bring John his smokes and stand over him with his plate and offer him some. Which was still weird, because on those nights it was always chocolate cake, and John always said no. And then, without fail, Matt would gesture impatiently for John to spread his arms so Matt could balance the plate on his chest and crawl onto the bed so he was straddling John’s hips. 

 

He’d stay there. Eat his cake like using another human being for furniture was the most natural thing in the world. Watch John have his smoke like it was better than TV. Which, given the cable situation, maybe it was.  

 

It was strange, but not uncomfortable, being studied. Perceptive brown eyes followed his fingers when he flipped the cigarette around to tap off the dangling ash, watched the little plate balanced on John’s sternum rise as he drew the smoke into his lungs. Matt liked looking at John’s mouth on the exhale, pupils dilating slightly when he let the vapors drift and curl out slowly between his lips. He didn’t like it when John puffed the smoke out his nostrils though, and would wrinkle his own nose in disapproval and focus on his plate again.

 

They never fucked twice, but sometimes they’d fool around a bit after that and Matt would come again. Grinding and spilling into John’s hand or over his thigh, with a stifled moan and something trapped between his teeth, like one of John’s fingers, or his lower lip, or once, his ear lobe.

 

“You taste like chocolate.”

 

“Sorry.”

 

“Liar.”

 

“Freak. Everybody likes chocolate.”

 

Matt never told him he tasted of smoke.

 

And no matter how many times John did it, just to hear the sharp sound slice through the heavy layers of dark quiet settling around them, Matt would laugh in indignant surprise at the quick slap to his ass.

 

“Go to sleep.”

 

And he would. But John would wake up a couple hours later, at three or four. Always with the rough hotel sheets gone cold next to him, and the blue glow and rapid-fire tapping of Matt’s computer a quiet taunt from the corner. 

 

  
There would be some kind of wordless goodbye those nights, that was somehow better than the usual incongruously bright ‘see ya’.  


 

 If he wasn’t too engrossed in whatever he was doing on the tiny laptop screen, Matt would watch John dress silently. Then, before making his way out the door, John would stop next to where Matt was sitting hunched over his work and make his first attempt. 

 

Matt would never let him get away with a tender thumb over his cheek, or rub of his neck. He would always jerk away or shake his head – even threaten to bite John’s fingers if they looked like they might be destined for his face. But the second time John reached, Matt would grin and let John get in a little tug on his hair, or soft rap of knuckles on the kid’s arm.  

 

And John would go home, the way he always did, to shower off the clandestine stain of their nightly bad habit. But on those nights – the nights he got whatever it was right, and the undertone of sweet cocoa mingled with the clinging scents of tobacco and sin and _Matt_ – he did it with a secretive little smile.

 

He would grab another hour’s sleep if there was time, and be back in the hotel Lobby for Matt, both of them clean and pressed and respectably caffeinated, by eight fifteen. 

 

09:00 would see them at Federal Plaza – the glossy veneer over their dirty little secret intact, and the foundations of everything underneath just that little bit more cracked and chipped away. 

 

Business as usual.

 

~☼~ 

 

John jingled the keys in his hand impatiently.

 

“C’mon, get your bag.”

 

Matt was slow this morning. John could never figure it out, it was like the more sleep he got the more the kid seemed to want. 

 

He’d slept the whole way through the cross-town traffic, only lifting his head when the car crawled into the dim dank of the underground lot. He had a vivid pink splotch on his forehead from sleeping against the glass, and his hair was making impossible shapes John was pretty sure he’d seen already on a MOMA billboard.

 

When they were alone in the dark, John would simply reach out and fix it. Matt would close his eyes at the touch, even if it was clumsy and John’s fingers caught and pulled. But here, in even this dim daylight, John might as well have been in cuffs. Chained like a Rottweiler, all he could do was bark.

 

“Fix your hair, mop-top.”

 

“You got everything? Check the back seat? There’s a book back there.”

 

“Now move your ass, Cyber Crime. I got a meeting with the guy from Westchester County branch in eight minutes.”

 

Matt made full use of those eight minutes.

 

“You know that book I left in the back, McClane? Okay. Ever read up on Greenpeace? Get ready for this: Total. Scam. So not kidding, there’s this one dude…”

 

They made their way out of the shade of the lot into bright sunshine. And the strange, silent kid trotting to keep pace with him shook off the sleep of the morning and the shadow of the night before, and babbled his way back into being Matt again.

 

 

~☼~ 

 

The one perk of the desk-jockey gig was weekends. They were about three months into the whole hotel business by the time John first recognized this opportunity and brought the kid home with him instead. 

 

“…even exist in _nature_ ,” Matt was saying. “It’s not even like it’s hard to make stuff without it. The hydrogenation process is, like, this whole extra step that they’re actually _adding_ into – whoa, that was Pearl, McClane. McClane? That…you missed Pearl. You’re gonna have t– Okay, and now we’re taking the bridge.”

 

“Knicks game tonight,” John said, like it explained everything. Which it absolutely did. “That shit-hole the Feds got you staying in doesn’t have ESPN. Pizza okay with you? I got beer, we won’t need to stop. Should be there in time for tip-off.” 

 

John could feel the kid looking at him, but he kept his eyes on the road. Last thing he needed was to look over and see Matt struggling for the words to turn him down.

 

Seconds passed and John heard Matt move restlessly in his seat. He’d always had an active imagination, and John half expected him to be pulling out his cell phone and dialling in an Amber Alert. But when John finally chanced it and glanced over, Matt was turned away, looking out his window again. 

 

“No olives, “ he said. 

 

And the sun began its slow descent over the city that never slept, taking with it the loud colours and garish banter, and leaving the laconic and standoffish dusk to its purposeful pursuit of the evening’s diversions.

 

 

~☼~ 

 

They nearly didn’t make it to the bed at all tonight, not with what Matt had been doing in the elevator. 

 

Hands jammed deep in his pockets – the lascivious wiggle of thick eyebrows a clear indication of what he was about to start doing with them. And then, in case John somehow managed to miss that, the eyes falling shut and the constant worrying of teeth over the lower lip were definitely enough of a hint. 

 

 _  
No_ respect for the security cameras. John almost felt bad for the guy in the guard room, but then again _he_ was enjoying the show, so who knew, maybe it was like a perk of the job. At least he’d be spared Matt’s enthusiastic sound effects. 

 

By the time they gained the hallway he had already lunged at John’s mouth, and found new tasks for those busy hands. They tangled and tugged, necked and nipped – struggled their way down the hall, rather than break apart. At some point, they piled up against the wall, and John was so intent on getting his hands up and under all the layers of tucked-in office clothes that it took some time – he had no idea how much, really – to register that Matt had gotten them to the door. 

 

That was apparently where his focus gave out though, because he showed no sign of even thinking about digging out his key card. John felt around, aiming his little pat-down at the pocket were Matt usually kept it.  

 

Matt took John’s fumbling as an invitation, or maybe just an opportunity, to catch hold of John’s hips and jam their crotches together. 

 

Christ. 

 

They were in the hallway for fuck’s sake. Anyone could come through a door, or out of the elevator at any second, and John should have been the grown up here. He was bigger than Matt, and he could definitely shove him away; get him by the scruff and make him behave long enough to get the door shut behind them.

 

  
But he didn’t. Matt’s impetuous groping just made his lips go tight against the kid’s mouth, in a smile he didn’t have time to indulge. Matt wasn’t wasting a second. He rolled his hips and made a little grunting sound.  


 

The shock of sensation flooded heat through him, and the noises Matt started making made the back of John’s neck prickle, even if there hadn’t been any hair there to stand on end for years. John’s fingers completely lost the dexterity to find what he was looking for, and his mouth was busy, way too busy, to get out anything more complicated than a gritted “key”. 

 

Matt’s mouth never had that problem though. Kid was a regular multi-tasker. He didn’t even interrupt what he was doing to reply. The rhythmic friction was starting to make John’s pulse stutter, but Matt’s voice came out smooth, if a little breathy.

 

“What’s your hurry, Detective?”

 

God, John was in no mood for games.

 

“Could say the same,” he opened his mouth over the pulse point at the junction between the tendon in Matt’s neck and his clavicle, warming and moistening. “…to you.” 

 

And then he sunk his teeth into the spot he’d prepared. Just hard enough, the way Matt liked. 

  
Matt made a new noise, like he’d been punched in the gut, and they were pressed so close together John could _feel_ the throb of response against his thigh. Things were going to be over pretty fast if John didn’t get them through that door, and the thought was enough for him to pull it together and back off far enough to let Matt get at his own clothing.  


 

Even then, John had to repeat himself. Matt was just staring at him, mouth kiss-swollen and eyes unfocused under the wild disarray of dark hair.

 

“Key?”

 

John let Matt toss his laptop bag on the bed – he would pitch a hissy-fit if touched the floor – and took advantage of the moment to lose his jacket, before he had Matt up against the wall again. Matt made up for lost seconds, got zippers open, skin against skin. 

 

He would’ve fucked Matt like this, one leg hooked up and over John’s hip, hanging on for dear life and preferably chanting John’s name like he’d lost every other word in his vocabulary. But his shoulder just wasn’t up for those sorts of tricks any more. By now, John wasn’t sure when, or if, the day would come that he could hold the kid up for any length of time. One surgery too many, he figured. 

  
Besides, the lube was all the way across the room, and John wasn’t about to move right now. Matt must have been thinking something similar, although it took John a second to figure out what he was up to when he turned his head away and spit in his hand.  


 

John didn’t know if this was going to work for him, but he was fascinated anyway, watching what Matt was doing. Working his palm over each of them in turn, spreading the slick of saliva and pre-cum before wrapping both of them in his long-fingered grip. 

 

John’s hand was bigger, and he used it to cover Matt’s – matching his pace and pulling a moan from him that made John’s balls draw up in anticipation. Maybe this was going to work just fine.

 

Turned out John was right about how close Matt had been in the hall. He found that spot on Matt’s neck again and went back to work with lip, tongue, and teeth. It was just the ticket. Matt came after mere seconds, panting and pumping his release over both of their hands, dicks, and probably their shoes. 

 

Things were plenty slick now, and there was sure as hell no more question of whether this was working. It didn’t take more than three or four more strokes before John was following after. He broke off their shared grip and crumpled forward. Both hands slamming the wall on either side of Matt’s head, hips bucking into Matt’s groin out of any voluntary control. Just like this, like idiot teenagers, half-clothed and messy. With knees threatening mutiny, jaw clenching, and eyes sliding shut or vision blacking out, John wasn’t sure which. 

 

He could see just fine now, though. Could see Matt watching him, looking for an answer before he even asked – eyes trained on John’s the entire time he was dragging his shorts back up, and wriggling casually out of both his shoes and his trousers where they were slouched at his ankles.

 

John worried sometimes this setup was no good for the kid. He treated the whole assignment like a vacation. He never had to clean up his room, and he couldn’t seem to get enough of ordering high calorie room service on the FBI’s dime. John’s taxes were feeding Farrell’s carbohydrate habit.

 

John looked right back. Like there was anything else to do. Like he could ignore the challenge in those eyes – some unnamed intention, some message he was supposed to decipher. 

 

There was no way he could simply ask. John didn’t even know the question. Besides, there were rules, and that was not how the game was played. It would be cheating on the test. 

 

“You want anything?”

 

 

~☼~

 

By Wednesday night, John could usually find himself ready to skip over Thursday altogether.

 

Friday nights now meant hours well wasted on the couch – John’s rickety coffee table struggling valiantly under the burden of takeout containers, sweating beer cans, and Matthew’s sneakered feet, while he complained about whatever was on the tube. Unless it was the game – and then the rule was he had to wait for the commercial break before he was allowed to start quoting the players’ statistics and lambasting their inflated salaries.

 

John almost looked forward to Saturday mornings even more. It was a safe bet, if the scent of coffee drew John out of his bed that morning, to find Matt scrubbed and dressed with the living room cleared of last night’s cartons and cans, waiting on the couch with a coffee cup and a dilapidated copy of his magazine. 

 

WIRED, it was called. They were starting to pile up around the place. John got tired of reminding the kid to take them with him every time he took him home. He’d be back to read it the next week anyway.

 

If it was too early for Matt when John opened his eyes, John would have to tiptoe past him to make the coffee. He had given up after the first few weeks, trying to get Matt to take the bed. He left him with a pillow and blankets every weekend, but they always ended up mostly on the floor. 

 

John would never know how somebody could manage to sprawl quite so spectacularly in such a narrow space. Spread-eagled, more or less, with one arm up over the back of the couch, the other arm and a leg dangling off the side, impressively and impossibly managing not to slide right off. Like the kid could defy gravity.

 

He had learned to resist the urge to gather up the tumble of kicked-off bedding and cover Matt up, because he could never get away with it. Matt would wake without fail, blink at him, muzzy and mussed, and offer to ‘help’ with breakfast.  

 

This was less than ideal. And not just because breakfast was when their companionable weekends skipped the rails somehow – turned a corner into strange, gloomily-lit alleys. 

 

After breakfast was when John took Matt home, and they gradually found they both preferred to simply put it off. Sometimes until well after what was really lunch time, making their way through at least one pot of coffee and catching up on the week; Matt’s reading, the office gossip. 

 

The real problem was that Matt’s idea of _helping_ mainly consisted of leaning blearily against the various surfaces of the kitchen John would need to access, like the counters, the cupboards, and sometimes even – dumbfoundingly – the fridge.

 

If he was feeling especially industrious, he would pick up various objects around John’s kitchen, and subject them to careful examination before setting them down again. He had thankfully all but stopped taking things apart to see how they fit together, after an incident involving John’s electric can opener and a broken sugar bowl. 

 

It was a damn good thing John kept his gun in a locked cabinet.

 

What got under John’s skin the most though, was the unnatural silence that entering the kitchen seemed to impose on Matt. Matt would generally watch, taciturn, while John scrambled eggs, fried bacon and set up the toaster – seeming to reserve his pattering monologues for the evenings, lit only by the flicker of the television, as if the weekend’s arrival flipped all their usual rules and routines on their heads.

 

They never fucked at John’s place, either. John wasn’t sure when that particular rule had gotten set, but it seemed the light of the city outside could reach them here too –  threatening to seep in through the walls and over the boundaries they’d built up, and cast a spotlight on everything unspoken they’d shrouded in shade.

 

 

 

~☼~

 

 

If you asked him last July, John never would have thought the day would come when he’d see the kid’s extraordinary nattering as a plus, but the biggest benefit of their daylight time together was that Matt talked to him. Rarely stopped actually, unless he was passed out in the passenger seat, somehow miraculously recovering hours of lost sleep in a mere twenty minutes. Forty, if it had been _that_ kind of night.

 

But when Matt was awake, as long as he didn’t bring up that dark hotel room, John could ask him anything. And – usually – get an answer. 

 

Not today though. 

 

The FBI was only going to pay for Matt’s hotel for so long. He was supposed to find his own place within a year, that was the deal. It was hard to find a place in Manhattan, that was for sure, but Matt had given up too easily after the first few months. 

 

That would be fine, of course, if he didn’t plan to stay. But Matt had taken to dodging the question whenever John asked if he planned to stick with the job here, or look for something else. 

 

And it turned out John wasn’t the only one the kid was ducking.

 

“Talked to Bowman today.”

 

“Yeah? How was that? How is old Bowman these days?”

 

“Said you haven’t been returning his calls, actually.”

 

“Shit, knew I was forgetting something. Yeah, he wanted to know about that blip on the grid in Oregon. It was nothing, just some script kiddie trying to impress his girlfriend.”

 

“Actually…he wanted to know if I knew your plans. Says the guys from Finance are after him to shut down your relocation budget. Year’s almost up.”

 

“A year. Wow. What did I tell you about this city? Could _not_ be harder to get a place.”

 

“It’s been a while since we went looking.”

 

“Yeah, it has. Since _we_ went. But I don’t take you everywhere I go, McClane, okay, I’m keeping an eye out for something on the net. It’s just a pain in the ass, to – you know what? It’s not even a problem. I’ll figure it out.”

 

“You know if you want me to drive you somewhere I can.” There was more though, and John really had to say it. “...But you should think about it. Bowman had a lot to say about what’s going on in DC. Sounds like you could go far, there.”

 

Bowman had said more than that. He said they could really use somebody of Matt’s “calibre and dedication”.  He said he was prepared to sweeten the offer they’d already made, so if John happened to be talking to him, to tell him to call them back.

 

“Yeah, no, like I said, I know relocation is almost up and it’s no big deal, I’ll figure it out. I’ll figure it out, and I’ll call Bowman about that Oregon thing and, really,” Matt said, barely pausing for breath, “It was nothing. The guy was chatting everything he was doing to this girl over a public IRC the whole time he was dumping all kinds of shit like ‘operation desert fox’ and ‘code: eagle’s flight’ into his password generator. Not exactly covert ops. This poor dude had _no_ idea ‘project Birddog’ was a real thing. Korman wanted to send somebody in there to put the fear of God, America and the FBI in him, but I thought it was better if he doesn’t know Big Brother’s watching him just yet. You know? He hasn’t tried anything else all week. So, really…”

 

So maybe the budget thing was skirting too close to the issue. 

 

The lines between dark and light were starting to blur on him, leaving everything dusky and half-lit. John didn’t know how long he could keep this whole thing up, but he did know a deliberate change of subject when he heard it.

 

 

 

~☼~

 

 

“I want cake.” 

 

This was a new development. He’d never given John a clue before. 

 

“You want anything?” No mistaking it was a test this time. John could hear that trip-hammer again. 

 

Or maybe it was just his heart.

 

“I got everything I need right here.”

 

Matt bit his lip and scrutinized him for a second before nodding mutely and getting up. 

 

John thought he passed the test, when he woke up to leave at 3:30 and Matthew was still draped across his chest; hair damp at the roots and sticking to his forehead, unconscious breaths coming slow and humid against John’s collar bone. 

 

 

 

~☼~

 

 

Four minutes. Matt had officially been gone too long just to grab the beers from the kitchen he’d gotten up for. 

 

John clicked off the television. The Jets were down by 14 points anyway. He stood up and stretched, squared his shoulders and tried not to look intimidating before he made his way to the kitchen. 

 

It was time.

Sure enough, Matt was standing in the kitchen with his back to John and the fridge wide open.

 

Matt jumped – even though John was careful not to touch him – when he leaned around him and slowly pushed the fridge door to. Beverages could wait.

“You have cake,” Matt said, still staring at the refrigerator. 

 

Matt turned around to face him, but there was nowhere for him to go so he ended up backed against the counter. John maybe didn’t mind him being captive for this. They were going to have to talk about it sooner or later. And now was already later.

 

“…It’s chocolate.”

 

 John wasn’t sure when he realized he was operating in a world where chocolate meant ‘stay’ and no olives meant ‘don’t try anything funny, old man’, but when you’re working with a hacker, you learn to communicate in code. 

 

“You were staying in a smoker’s room.”

 

“ _Were_?”

 

Typical. Kid had always been quicker to get there than John was. Picked up on the past tense before John even noticed he’d used it. Wasn’t wrong, though. Like he said, typical.

 

“You know, if you stay here there ain’t no maid, you’re gonna have to pick up after yourself.” There. It was out in the light, now. 

 

Matt swallowed. His eyes were round, and leery, like a cornered alley cat’s. 

 

“...But I think I might be able to arrange for some room service,” John added.

 

He waited, while Matt considered this – ran it through whatever mental programs he used to come to all his unfathomable conclusions. John swore he could hear the whir of gears. The RPMs on the kid’s machinery up there had to be burying the needle right about now.

 

“Quit calling me Cyber Crime and maybe we can work out some kind of deal, Agent.”

 

“Agent, huh?” This was progress. 

 

John wanted to move in, plant both hands on the counter on either side of Matthew, immobilize the target. But the kid was still looking sort of fight-or-flight, and he didn’t want to push his luck. Not right now. 

 

He reached out with one hand and hooked his fingers under Matt’s belt, instead. Didn’t pull, though.

 

“You know, the FBI doesn’t negotiate with extortionists. You’re getting too used to dealing with the local PD. That shit won’t fly in DC, kid.”

 

This didn’t get the playful sass-back John was expecting. Matt dropped his chin, looking down at where John was invading his space like he was glad for the excuse to unlock their gazes – dark hair swinging forward to obscure those too-expressive features.

 

“No? What happened to ‘you’ll go far in DC’? Fuck you, McClane. Call me when you figure out what you want.”

 

What _John_ wanted? So maybe bringing up DC was a mistake, but whatever it took to break the spell frankly worked for John. 

 

‘Fuck you’ meant something. It meant anger, and anger was better than the _nothing_ he’d been getting up till now.  ‘Fuck you’ meant they were getting somewhere, and it was a good thing John had that grip on Matthew’s belt, because the kid was about to put his usual stop to it. 

 

He turned his shoulder into John’s chest, trying to torque out of his grasp so he could disappear back into the shadows. 

 

“Hey, hey. Hang on!” John kept his hold and yanked Matt back straight, other hand at the ready to catch any punches the kid might throw. “Wouldja stop – stop and _hang on_ one fucking second?” 

 

Matt didn’t try anything like that, though, just pivoted nimbly back and braced himself against the counter. The last of the flight was gone from him now and he was all fight – wide brown eyes gone narrow and blazing-black, both hands tucked behind his hips and ready to shove forward, hard, into John’s bad shoulder if he had to. 

 

But for now he was just waiting, calculating the next move. So John better come up with something good. And damn quick.

 

“Can you…can you stop and think for one second that maybe this isn’t about me? It’s all you, Matthew. Your call.”

 

John watched Matt’s brows twitch, like they wanted to knit up but he wasn’t about to let confusion into the mix. He was guarding that anger, keeping it pure, because he would need it undiluted to give John the verbal ass-kicking he was clearly gearing up for. So John kept talking while he had the chance.

 

“Your call,” He repeated. “DC, Jersey…here. But you’re the only one who can make it kid, and I know you don’t need me to tell you it’s gotta be soon.”

 

“My call,” Matt nodded. Tone quiet, dangerous. “Right. Because you don’t make calls. You don’t call for months, you just _show up_. At my job. At my door, with that stupid car, and in my – in my fucking _bedroom_.”

 

Well, to be fair, it was a hotel room. Matt’s entire place was a bedroom, and there wasn’t much John could do about that. Not if Matt wouldn’t let him. 

 

“And now suddenly you’re all about the DC thing,” Matt went on.  “My _career_. Why? Fuck, why now? You don’t give a shit about my career, John, you’ve never fucking cared.”

 

First names? Kid was feeling ballsy. Why not break _all_ the rules while they were at it?

 

“Never cared? Jesus Christ, Matthew, whaddyou think I call you all that Intelligence, Cyber shit for huh? You been through two promotions and three divisions in a matter of months. I know you’re kicking ass at this gig. I never woulda thought the kid I met last year was the same guy. I’m impressed, Matt. Alright? I’m…proud of ya.”

 

One of Matt’s hands slipped off the counter and down to his side, softening the sharp, aggressive line of his narrow shoulders. But it looked like he’d only scored part marks. Matt was still holding John’s gaze steady, not about to let up just yet.

 

“So if I’m doing so hot here, why would I go to DC?”

  
“Why’d you come to New York?” John could get used to this rule-breaking thing.  


 

Matt didn’t give him an answer, but he didn’t duck his head and hide, either. 

 

“ ’Cause with that shit you just gave me about your _career_ and not giving a shit, I got this crazy idea it was because you _wanted_ all those promotions. And come on kid, DC? It’s headquarters. Big shit FBI Homeland stuff. I’m not trying to get rid of you, here. But I can’t – I’m not gonna ask you to give that up. I’m just trying to get you to make a decision for once. I want _you_ to give a shit, Matt. This thing…come on, it’s big. It’s your life.” 

 

Matt was still meeting John’s eye; letting him watch the hard, glittering fire die away and leave only the familiar, molten brown. 

 

  
“My job…isn’t my life, McClane.”  


 

He reached out a hand to mirror John’s stance, inclining forward and off the counter a little to take a matching hold of John’s beltline.

 

It wasn’t quite code, but John was taking it as encouragement.

 

  
“You know kid, the funny thing about ordering room service? You can have pretty much anything you want. But you gotta decide what that is before you pick up the phone and make the call.”  


 

  
“Anything I want, huh?”  


 

  
So much for not negotiating with extortionists.  


 

“And for the record, ‘you want anything’ is a piss-poor code for ‘are you staying’.”

 

Matt blinked, and John felt the fingers at his waist tense in surprise – but the kid recovered quickly.

 

“You know, for a detective, you can be pretty slow with the getting a clue thing.”

 

Detective. This really was progress.

 

“Yeah? How’s this for a clue: ‘it’s too late at night to be eating that shit’ doesn’t secretly mean ‘I got what I came for and I’m taking off and abandoning you in five minutes, so you should get as far away as possible and start ignoring me’.”

 

 Matt wasn’t smiling yet, but John could recognize a suppressed smirk in the soft sparkle that had replaced the angry glitter in those dark eyes.

 

“No? What does it secretly mean then?”

 

“Are you ready for this? Because it’s pretty big, FBI, top secret shit. It means ‘it’s too late at night to be eating that shit and you should stay the hell in bed and we should fuck again instead’.”

 

Matt finally laughed, a wry little chuckle.

 

“That’s…wow, that’s – charming to the last, McClane. Anyone ever tell you that? Look. I’m not…like I know you like to call me _kid_ , because, let’s face it, you’re getting pretty old. But I’m not, like, actually a kid. Like I’m not a child, okay McClane? I will pick up after myself, Jesus, but I’m not picking up after _you_.”

 

John did start to pull a little then, and Matt didn’t fight him. Even if he did make him work for it, leaning back like stubborn, dead weight while John towed him slowly in by the waistband of his jeans.  

 

“This isn’t gonna be that kind of domestic ‘arrangement’,” Matt was saying, holding one hand up in the air to make quoting motions with his slim fingers while John’s free arm gradually made its way around his waist. “And, you better be ready for me. Because, I’m a programmer. Okay? I eat and sleep at weird hours and I fuck at even weirder ones and if we’re gonna be sharing a bed, you are so totally buying me some ear plugs. You think that helicopter was loud? You should _hear_ yourself man! In fact, can we get a tape recorder and make that happen, because let me tell you, McClane…”

 

There he was. The kid John knew from that disastrous and fateful fourth of July. 

 

The sudden break and flow of chatter was a welcome change, here in John’s kitchen, with the late afternoon sunlight streaming in through the window. But it was pouring over them, hitting the mahogany in Matthew’s hair and lighting him up in an autumnal blaze, and suddenly John had much better ideas for the uses of Matt’s mouth. Things like begging and sucking and saying John’s name. 

 

This time in their own bed. And then – if Matt wasn’t too busy sleeping off everything John had planned – maybe John would see what he could do about that room service thing.

 

But first, he thought, fitting his hand to the curve of Matt’s nape, he would have to shut the kid up long enough to get him there. And, John figured, as he moved forward enough to feel those fast-moving lips still against his own, he knew just the way to do it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~☼~

 

END


End file.
